Saturday, December 24, 2016

Why science cannot answer moral questions

This blog post is a critique of a modern "TED talk" titled: "Science can answer moral questions." (Click these links to watch the video or read the transcript.)

TED is a well-known international nonprofit dedicated to providing a platform for "powerful talks" and promotion of the "power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world. ...from the world's most inspired thinkers."

The speaker of this particular TED talk in 2010 was Sam Harris, a doctor in neuroscience, also known for challenging traditional proofs for the existence of God.

MAKE NO ASSUMPTIONS
In order to identify the inherent flaw that lines his entire speech, I invite the reader to lay down all presuppositions on what he/she already believe about the morality of any issue. That is a distraction from the matter at hand. This blog post is solely intended to confront the assertion of the TED talk as to whether science can answer moral questions. Therefore, in this post, I will only examine Harris' assertions on morality based on that premise.

THE ARGUMENT
For Harris, whether or not something is beneficial to human well-being/flourishing is intertwined with whether or not something is moral. His closing remarks include the statement:
[W]e can no more respect and tolerate vast differences in notions of human well-being than we can respect or tolerate vast differences in the notions about how disease spreads, or in the safety standards of buildings and airplanes.
According to Harris, something like physical health, which can be measured by science in the form of facts, reveal that which is moral or not. Granted, he admits science cannot answer every moral dilemma, but this is nonetheless the gist of his speech. Feel free to click the links at top to hear his speech in context. Using his own terminology, his argument in visible form looks like this:

Harris' basic argument for how science reveals morality
Do scientific facts reveal X to lead to
human "well-being/flourishing" (e.g. physical health)?
–?–The matter is moral.
Do scientific facts reveal X to lead to
human "non-well-being/non-flourishing" (e.g. sickness, injury)?
–?– The matter is immoral

As a general principle for morality, the conclusions in this table aren't necessarily wrong. But remember our question. Is science what is providing the moral answers?  I ask the reader to follow carefully. Remember what I requested earlier. Lay down all presuppositions of what you consider moral. Let science do what Harris says it will do. Approach science with a blank slate in order to permit it to reveal to you what is moral. Can science tell us whether or not something is moral.

In Harris' argument, he actually makes an illogical leap that goes like this, for example: Science reveals that X causes death. Therefore, X is morally evil. But what's missing from his logic? I'll ask it in the form of a question: What makes death a moral evil? Science says nothing about the moral quality of any molecular reaction. Science only reveals what happens when these molecules interact with these molecules.

Think of it this way. Science reveals that an injection of 5g of sodium thiopental is effective in causing death in humans. Some states use this barbiturate to administer lethal injections to criminals. Therefore, if a man acquired this barbiturate, and injected it into a stranger on the street, the stranger would die. What does science reveal about the morality of this act? Absolutely nothing. All science "answered" was that X would result in Y.  All science "answered" was that these molecules have this reaction with these other molecules. But it takes an interpretation of the facts to discern which reactions have what moral quality.

SECRETLY APPEALING TO HUMAN DIGNITY
When Harris says he is appealing to science to answer a moral question, what he is actually doing is appealing to the inherent dignity of a human being versus, say, an inanimate object. In the above table, I marked where Harris is missing an intermediate logical step in the second column. It is in this step where one would establish a human being merits good health because of their inherent dignity. Harris skips this point in his analysis. It is a blind spot of sorts in his entire discourse. He presupposes human dignity. He acts as though science has revealed this dignity when it cannot.

At one point, Harris admits that his belief in moral answers aligns him with religious "demagogues," yet claims his answers come from "intelligent analysis" and theirs come from "a whirlwind." He says:
Now the irony, from my perspective, is that the only people who seem to generally agree with me and who think that there are right and wrong answers to moral questions are religious demagogues of one form or another. And of course they think they have right answers to moral questions because they got these answers from a voice in a whirlwind, not because they made an intelligent analysis of the causes and condition of human and animal well-being.
At least Harris admits here that his moral determinations come from "analysis" of the science and not from the science itself. In that sense, he has already debunked the title of his talk. But as I also mentioned, his analysis contains the presupposition of the dignity of the human person. Ironically, it is Harris who appeals to a "whirlwind." He avoids analysis of why humans have dignity at all or are even capable of moral actions.



CONCLUSIONS
The Catholic would agree that it is immoral to harm another's physical well-being because "The dignity of the human person is rooted in his creation in the image and likeness of God" (CCC#1700) Smashing a rock does not have the same moral quality even though the act can likewise be measured scientifically. The "natural moral law" is reasoned based on the principle of what "properly belongs to human nature" (CCC#1955). (See related post on Natural Law here.) This dignity is of such value, God Himself assumed the human nature in the Incarnation. But I won't go on a long apologetic for the dignity of the human person from a Catholic perspective because the purpose of this post is to show science cannot answer moral questions.

Consideration of the dignity of the human person is indispensable in answering moral questions. And the dignity of the human person is not revealed by science. Dignity cannot be empirically observed in a laboratory. Thus, because human dignity is an essential component of moral inquiry, science cannot "answer" moral questions. It can only show what effects certain things will have in the empirical world, but not the moral quality of any effect.

EDIT 12/31/2018 to add: A 2017 interview with clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson (queue 1:13:02-1:15:28) echoes the above sentiments with regard to Harris' claim to derive morality from science, or what Peterson calls the realm of "facts."

Monday, October 31, 2016

Luther's "Reformation" Regret

Public domain image of Luther nailing 95 Theses at Wittenberg. (Acquired from Wikimedia Commons)

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his infamous 95 Theses to the door at a church in Wittenberg, Germany, signifying his break from the Catholic Church, and paving the way for like-minded protestors. 499 years have since elapsed. Disunity among Christians remains a scandal and an affront to the prayer of Jesus that the people, "may be one." (cf. John 17:11-26)

In the modern era of social media, we see today the hashtag #ReformationDay posted in a strictly celebratory manner. From one perspective, it is a strange, even perverse, celebration, that Christians on either side of this divide find cause to rejoice for disunity. In fact, one could argue Martin Luther himself would have taken offense at the celebration.

Eight years after the incident at Wittenberg, Luther lamented how competing teachers of the faith fancied themselves the more authoritative than he, when he wrote: "There is not one of them that does not think himself more learned than Luther." Again, he bemoaned: "[T]here are almost as many sects and beliefs as there are heads." If we look at his 1525 letter to Antwerp, we see these regrets and more. He believed he had escaped devils in the Catholic Church, yet discovered that "a stronger" devil had prevailed:
We believed, during the reign of the pope, that the spirits which make a noise and disturbance in the night, were those of the souls of men, who, after death, return and wander about in expiation of their sins. This error, thank God, has been discovered by the Gospel, and it is known at present, that they are not the souls of men, but nothing else than those malicious devils who used to deceive men by false answers. It is they that have brought so much idolatry into the world. 
The devil seeing that this sort of disturbances could not last, has devised a new one; and begins to rage in his members, I mean in the ungodly, through whom he makes his way in all sorts of chimerial follies and extravagant doctrines. This won't have baptism, that denies the efficacy of the Lord's supper; a third puts a world between this and the last judgment; others teach that Jesus Christ is not God; some say this, others that; and there are almost as many sects and beliefs as there are heads.
I must cite one instance, by way of exemplification, for I have plenty to do with these sort of spirits. There is not one of them that does not think himself more learned than Luther; they all try to win their spurs against me; and would to heaven that they were all such as they think themselves, and that I were nothing! The one of whom I speak assured me, amongst other things, that he was sent to me by the God of heaven and earth, and talked most magnificently, but the clown peeped through all. At last, he ordered me to read the books of Moses. I asked for a sign in confirmation of this order, "It is," said he, "written in the gospel of St. John." By this time I had heard enough, and I told him to come again, for that we should not have time, just now, to read the books of Moses...
I have plenty to do in the course of the year with these poor people: the devil could not have found a better pretext for tormenting me. As yet the world had been full of those clamorous spirits without bodies, who oppressed the souls of men; now they have bodies, and give themselves out for living angels...
When the pope reigned we heard nothing of these troubles. The strong one (the devil) was in peace in his fortress; but now that a stronger one than he is come, and prevails against him and drives him out, as the Gospel says, he storms and comes forth with noise and fury.
(Martin Luther, Letter to Antwerp, 1525)
Below is a card of the above Luther quote, suitable for sharing on social media.


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Monday, October 24, 2016

Sirach 11:29-34 Do not bring every man into your home...


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Monday, October 10, 2016

Wisdom 13:5 the beauty of created things...


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